


We Are Stardust

by thisiszircon



Series: The Moment of Awakening [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 17:16:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6203989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiszircon/pseuds/thisiszircon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Ace enjoy a weekend of music, friendship and unexpected philosophy at the Woodstock festival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With grateful thanks to my invaluable beta-reader and editor, [Nemo the Everbeing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing)

_Woodstock Festival, NY_

_Saturday, August 16th 1969_

 

Flared jeans: check.

Tie-dye T-shirt: check.

Jesus sandals: no.  Ace understood the benefits of sturdy footwear, and she wasn't going to change her philosophy for the sake of a summer's weekend in 1969.  Doc Martens were, basically, always the way to go.

Flowers in her hair...?

Also no.  No.  As in _fuck right off_.

Okay, so she was as close to hippy-fied as she was likely to get.  All set.  She picked up her rucksack and followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS.

They were in a wooded area that surrounded a pond or small lake.  The morning was quieter than Ace had been expecting, given that the most famous music festival in popular music's history was going on in a field close by.  Perhaps this explained why the Doctor had chosen to land the ship at the crack of dawn.

While she looked about, he placed a device by the TARDIS door which would emit a holographic cloaking field along with a mildly repelling pulse that made passers-by veer off in other directions without really knowing why.

"Are you ever going to fix the chameleon circuit?" Ace asked as he did this.

"I did once," he replied.  "Wasn't keen."

"Why?"

He straightened up and considered her a moment, then he said, "Do you know what _kintsugi_ is?"

"Godzilla's little cartoon friend?"

He looked baffled.  "Don't think so."

"Then no.  No idea."

He smiled.  "Never mind.  The point is - sometimes the greatest beauty is in imperfection."

She tut-tutted.  "Okay, I know we're about to do a hippie-fest, but you don't have to get started with the far-outs quite so early, you know."

"Then put it down to being set in my ways."  He turned away from her and patted the side of the ship.  "I like her as a blue box.  Don't you?"

Ace grinned.  "Wouldn't have her any other way."

"Well then."  He activated the device he'd set up, and the blue box shimmered and disappeared.

"Course, there's a town up the road where we could have hidden the TARDIS."  Ace smirked at the Doctor's raised eyebrow.  "Do my research these days, don't I?"

"So I've noted."

"So why leave the ship here?  Right where hundreds of hippies might fall over it?"

The Doctor was beginning to look exasperated.  "Because you want to see The Who _and_ Jimi Hendrix."

"So?"

"So they'll be playing more than twenty-four hours apart."

"Oh.  So?"

He walked over to where he'd left the picnic basket of provisions.  Rather than pick it up, he stuck the point of his umbrella into the ground and leaned on the handle.  "You know you told me of your trip to Glastonbury?"

Ace grinned at the memories.  She and Ange and Julian had all done part-time jobs to pay for the tickets.  They'd got the train to Bath and then got a lift the rest of the way in a minibus full of seriously back-combed and lipstick-smeared Cure fans.  Ace had snogged the one called Darren.

"The summer of 1986," she reminisced.  "Half-Man-Half-Biscuit.  Oh!  Mighty Lemondrops.  They were wicked."  She sighed.  "Stayed up for thirty-six hours straight, and spent about thirty hours of it dancing.  Was I ever that young?"

"Yes, I'm afraid you were, you poor old thing.  Now - do you remember the rather basic sanitation at Glastonbury?"

Ace wrinkled her nose at the memory of chemical Portaloos, and how quickly she'd learned the wisdom Ange had demonstrated in bringing her own toilet paper.  "I'd rather remember Robert Smith singing 'Lovecats'.  Why are we talking about this?"

"Because that very basic sanitation would look like five-star luxury to the festival-goers in the field next door."  The Doctor turned his head briefly at the call of some bird welcoming the dawn, smiled as if he understood the language the creature had spoken, then turned back to Ace.  "This festival will become a defining moment in cultural history, and rightly so.  But not because it is well organised."

Ace frowned.  "I see."

The Doctor picked up his picnic basket.  "Which is why, if we're to be here for an entire weekend, it's good to have a handy TARDIS ten minutes' walk from the festival field."

Ace glanced back at where the ship was now doing a very good holographic impression of the surrounding trees.  She was unaffected by the repulsion field thanks to the chip in one of her earrings.  "How am I going to find it again when it's invisible?"

The Doctor huffed and said, "Use your initiative."  Then he went walking off the other way.

The dawn light was just bright enough through the gaps in the trees to take the edge off the dimness, but Ace fished her penlight out of her pocket and flicked it on.  She looked at the place where she knew the ship to be, then she looked around.  The pond's edge was a couple of metres to the left, and between the pond and the ship was a tree, distinctive by the way it leaned over the water a little way.  She got her compass out of her pocket and checked the orientation, then she went to the leaning tree.  The bark was quite smooth.  She unholstered her prized new knife from its ankle-sheath and used it to cut a letter 'T' in the tree's trunk, under which she drew an arrow pointing at the ship's location.  Then she replaced her knife, hoisted her rucksack comfortably over one shoulder, and checked her surroundings again before setting off after the Doctor.

Just as she left the trees, not far over to her right, she heard the sound of a woman giggling, and then gasping, and then squealing with pleasure.  Ace felt her face grow hot as she hurried to join the Doctor.

Yep.  This was 1969 all right.

~~~

By the time they'd reached the festival site it was obvious that the area had seen some recent heavy rain.  There was more mud than grass apparent in the fields.  A smattering of festival-goers were present, but the sea of people Ace had been expecting was not yet in place.  According to the Doctor, most had disappeared off to the various campsites or their parked vehicles for the first night of the festival.  Tonight, however, the music would keep going and so would the crowd.

Around the edge of the field, close to a tree line, there were several bivouacs made from deadfall and tarpaulins.  The air was smoky with campfires and the occasional whiff of something more fragrant.  With the burgeoning sunlight some people were starting to move around.  In the mire in the middle of the field leading down towards the distant stage the occasional mud-encrusted body stirred, stretched, then slumped back into oblivion.  A couple of these bodies seemed only to be wearing mud.  Ace had prepared herself for uninhibited nudity, however, and managed not to blush again.

The Doctor seemed to know where he was going, which made Ace wonder whether there were any earlier incarnations of him knocking around.  He found a spot close enough to the main field's perimeter that getting to and from the TARDIS wouldn't be a problem.  Then he set down the basket he'd brought with him and took from it a large plastic sheet, which Ace helped him spread out on the ground.  On top of that they spread their picnic blanket.

On the blanket the Doctor placed a fold-out tray which had little support legs; he'd used this to bring her bowls of soup in bed, back when she'd had a nasty bout of flu.  The tray now made a sort of coffee table in the middle of the blanket.

From his basket, the Doctor withdrew two mismatched mugs.  One of them said, "Terra-Omicron Chess Tournament 2391."  The other one had a cartoon of a pig in a hula outfit.

The Doctor took a bottle from his basket that looked suspiciously like champagne.  He popped the cork, which made it _sound_ suspiciously like champagne.  Then he poured two half-mugs and settled down comfortably on their blanket.  Ace put her rucksack behind her as a back rest and joined him.  She took her proffered mug.

"Many happy returns, Ace," the Doctor said, raising his hula-pig in salute.

She grinned and clinked mugs with him.  "Cheers, Professor!"

Ace sipped.  Yep.  Definitely champagne.  Drinking before seven o'clock in the morning felt seriously decadent, even if she had been awake for four or five hours already.

It was her twentieth birthday.  Dorothy McShane had passed beyond her teenaged years.

~~~

It started to drizzle with rain halfway through the morning, as the field filled up with hippies.  The churning of the muddy ground released a potent smell reminiscent of the dairy pasture this field had so recently been.

The Doctor put his umbrella up, wedged the handle between his basket and Ace's rucksack, and happily watched the comings and goings.

"Hey, man," said a young woman wearing a headband, a peasant-blouse and bell-bottoms.  It was not the first time Ace had heard the greeting that morning, and she smiled and waved amiably.  The woman drew closer.  She looked weary.  "Hey, do you guys mind if we set up next to you?"

The thing about Woodstock hippies, Ace was coming to realise, was that the majority of them were incredibly polite, sweet, considerate people.  The Doctor waved his arm at the decreasing amount of space around them and told the woman that the world was everybody's home.

(Ace had known for a long time that the Doctor was something of a hippie himself.)

The woman had a young man in tow, who was carrying a bag, an icebox and a large tarpaulin.  The couple got themselves some space and some protection from the mud and settled down.  The young man immediately began to roll a joint using the top of the icebox as a table.  The young woman sighed with what looked like relief, lay down on her side with one arm tucked under her head, and promptly fell asleep in the rain.  Her companion considered her a moment and then took off the waistcoat he wore over his T-shirt and used it to create a makeshift hood to protect the woman's face from the wet.

"Hey there.  I'm Alvin," he told Ace, once he'd finished rolling his joint and checked again on his girlfriend.  He held up the spliff.  "Would you like to share?"

"No thanks," Ace said.  "Makes me heart-racy.  But if you want some coffee or water to go with the number, we've got plenty."

Alvin's eyebrows rose.  "Oh, man.  You're English, right?"

"I like to think of myself as a citizen of the twelve galaxies."

He grinned.  "I like that.  Twelve galaxies.  That's cool.  And coffee would be cool."

The Doctor retrieved the thermos flask that Ace had never once seen run out, and he poured a cup for their new friend.  As he passed the coffee over - a hot drink, steaming and fragrant in this muddy field, seemed like quite the luxury - he said, "Hello.  I'm the Doctor.  This is my friend, Ace.  It's her birthday."

"Hey, man, happy birthday, Ace."  Alvin reached a hand across the space between their groundsheets and Ace took it.  It was just a touch, a squeeze, a moment of connection between two human beings.  "I'd sing you happy birthday but I gave a kid my guitar."

Ace arched her brows at him.  "Why did you do that?"

Alvin shrugged.  "He didn't have one.  And he was really good."  He sipped his coffee.  "Oh, man, that's beautiful.  That is a beautiful thing.  A hot drink, man!"  Between sips he smoked, and he was thoughtful enough to try to blow the smoke in a direction away from Ace, in spite of the fact that the later the morning grew, the more obvious the scents in the air all around them became.

"Is your girlfriend okay?" Ace asked.

"Maisie's my wife," Alvin said, with the slightly astonished pride and happiness that could only belong to a newlywed.  "She's good, thanks, man.  Just tired, you know?  We've been sleeping in the van, with the rain and all.  But we got here early and it isn't so comfortable after three nights."

The Doctor said, "The rain won't last all day.  It'll be a sunny afternoon."

Alvin didn't even blink; he took the comment on trust.  "That's great, man.  Hey - you wanna toke?"

Ace was taken aback when the Doctor reached across her and took the joint from Alvin.  She was less surprised when she noted that the Doctor failed to draw hard or inhale deep.  She realised that he was being more companionable than anything else.

On the other groundsheet, Maisie gave a contented snort.  Alvin looked at her with infinite tenderness.  The Doctor passed the joint back via Ace.

"Thanks, man."  Alvin settled back and smiled at the gathering crowd in the natural bowl-shape of the festival field.  "So who are you looking forward to on the bill today?"

~~~

The rain stopped just before noon.  The bands came on shortly afterwards.  Suddenly the whole field was warmed with sunshine.  Mud-caked people turned grey and crusty, but they didn't care.

Around Ace and the Doctor a community of twelve or so people had sprung up.  Two small campfires were going.  Some people were dancing, some were kissing, some were smoking and sharing.  A guy who wore his hair in two long plaits, and who looked to be of Indian ethnicity, had some conical pots of henna dye.  He used these to draw intricate and beautiful patterns on other people's skin.  Near him, a woman sat with her breasts bared and made necklaces and bracelets from hemp cord and hand-painted beads.  One young man sat cross-legged in the mud and watched his own hands make patterns in time to the music, in a way that seemed quite enthralling to him.

Conversations were about music, and freedom, and the way society could not be changed for the better through any of the established mechanisms like democracy.  And they were about Vietnam, and growing tomatoes, and the strange noise that someone's VW Bug had made all the way up the I81.  Ace came to realise that the hippies of the late sixties were indeed a culture all to themselves, but they were also quite normal, recognisable, relatable human beings too.

The music was just right for the setting.  Ace chatted and made friends.  The henna-guy's name was Ravi, and he told her about the tradition of _mehndi_ as he swept a path of teardrop-shaped dots over the necklace-woman's upper arm and shoulder, finishing with a swirl on her left shoulder blade that looked a little bit like the CND sign.  All the while, the Doctor supplied Ace - and numerous others - with food from the picnic basket.  He seemed content to relax and enjoy the day.

A band came on that sounded different to what had gone before: all ethnic percussion and Latin beats and a piercing electric guitar lead.  Maisie, who had woken up about twenty minutes earlier and been effusive in her gratitude for a cup of coffee, bounced to her feet and offered Ace a hand.

So Ace danced.  It was easy.  Not like Greenford Disco, where most people were surreptitiously watching everyone else to see who looked cool and who didn't.  This was more like Camden Feet First in the middle eighties, where indie met rock met the brand new rave scene, and everyone was in it for the music.

Towards the end of the band's set - and Ace still had no idea what they were called - she turned around and almost yelped to see the Doctor dancing not far from her.  He caught her eye and moved towards her, and took her hands and spun her round.

"What's the matter?" he asked, in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the sound being pumped from the massive speakers between them and the stage.  "Never seen a Time Lord dance before?"

Ace grinned.  "Only sitting down.  You usually jiggle in your chair."

"Well this is me jiggling upright."  Their palms touched, flat against each other, and without direction they both stretched up and out with a symmetry that would have been surprising in any other context.  "Having a nice birthday?"

"At this rate I'm going to be knackered before The Who!  When are they on?"

"Around dawn tomorrow."

Ace stopped dancing.  "You're kidding!"

"No.  They'll come on about five am."

"Why did we get here so early, then?"

"Partly because you can't come to Woodstock just to see a particular band.  It has to be about the whole experience."

"Okay, I get that."

"And partly because this morning was the only quiet time when we might have arrived unobtrusively.  For the next forty-eight hours the bands will play when the weather permits, morning, noon and night.  Told you.  This whole festival is an organisational shambles."

Ace looked around at the happy, energised, friendly faces.  "Doesn't seem to matter."

"No, it doesn't."  The Doctor took her hands again.  "If you need to nip off for forty winks, I'd recommend waiting until after Canned Heat.  The Grateful Dead will only play half their set because they blow up their amps.  Try to get back in time for Janis Joplin, though."

Ace looked up at the sky.  "Is it going to rain again?"

"Not until tomorrow. There'll be a thunderstorm, mid-afternoon."

"Maybe I'll just sleep here, then."

The Doctor shrugged as they danced.  "Everyone here will tell you to do your own thing.  That's the only rule."

"Then that's what I'll do."

Ace danced in the sunshine.

~~~

She wasn't sufficiently uninhibited to take off her T-shirt, but she rolled the sleeves right up and allowed Ravi to paint a spiralling pattern up her right arm.  The dots and grids and swirls he drew were oddly perfect.  On the inside of her wrist there was a group of linked circles which looked remarkably like a ball-and-stick representation of nitro-glycerine she'd made in her workshop, though she was probably assigning personal meaning to random lines.  The swirl over and around her elbow reminded her of the bulging disk of the Milky Way when seen from a certain angle at intergalactic distances.

At the top of her arm, just below her shoulder, were two characters that looked Chinese.  When she asked for a translation, Ravi shrugged and said, "I don't know.  I only speak English and Hindi."  Ace asked how he'd come up with a Chinese word if it wasn't one of his languages.  Ravi said he must have seen it somewhere and thought it fitting.  That was hippies for you.

When her _mehndi_ was finished, Ace returned to the Doctor's side.  "Do you speak Chinese?" she asked.

"A few words of Cantonese.  More of Mandarin."

"What does this mean?"  She turned her shoulder towards him and pointed at the script.

He looked at it a moment, glanced over at Ravi, then he shrugged.  "I don't know."

Ace blinked at him.  "Wow."

"What?"

"Isn't often I hear you say that."

"It happens," he said lightly.

"I can look it up in the databanks, I suppose," Ace considered, still peering down at her henna artwork.

"Is it important?"

"It's written on my arm!"

"Only for a few days."

But Ace was still thinking about the TARDIS's language capabilities.  "Hang on," she said.  "Wherever we go, whatever we see or hear, language usually gets translated.  It's the ship that does it."

"Not always.  She didn't translate the Russian sealed orders at Maiden's Bay."

"Oh.  That's true."  Ace frowned.  "So what are the rules?  Why isn't she translating this?"  She smirked, remembering the conversation about the chameleon circuit.  "Is her intergalactic phrase-book bust?  Is it another of her beautiful imperfections?"

The Doctor looked sharply at her for a moment, then he tut-tutted at her grin.  "Perhaps the translation isn't straightforward.  Sometimes words in other languages have no direct English translation.  Like _hiraeth_ in Welsh, or _dharma_ in Sanskrit."

She frowned, but it was as good an explanation as she was likely to get.  Ravi had probably seen the characters on a T-shirt or something.

"Looks nice, though," she said, peering at her painted arm.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed.  When she looked at him, he smiled amiably.  "Very nicely done.  Ravi has unusual talent."  Again he looked over to the henna painter, who was now sharing some tea with an older couple who had set up their camp with two deckchairs on the near side of his groundsheet.

Someone on the distant stage activated a mic and announced Canned Heat.

~~~

There were a couple of familiar tracks in Canned Heat's set: songs Ace didn't even know she knew.  She danced, and chatted.  The bare-breasted woman, whose name was Norma but who preferred to answer to 'Dove', gave Ace a necklace that apparently complemented her _prana_.  (Whatever that was.)  Ace thanked her and didn't even feel too weird when the gift was accompanied by an embrace.  After several hours immersed in such a tolerant and accepting atmosphere, the standard social inhibitions had started to look redundant.

The kid who'd been waving his hands around came down off his acid trip with a bout of agitation.  Another guy who'd been dancing through most of the afternoon went over to him.  Ace watched from a distance as the guy reassured the kid, then took the kid's pulse, then exchanged words with the Doctor, who'd also noticed the change.  The Doctor produced water and a banana from his picnic basket.  The guy encouraged the kid to eat and drink, and tried to keep the kid occupied as the tail-end of the trip dissipated.

Ange had dropped acid once, mainly to try to impress her first short-lived boyfriend.  It hadn't been a pretty sight and had done much to put Ace off recreational drugs.

The music played, and Ace danced.  Their local 'settlement', as she was now thinking of it, had grown further to include herself and the Doctor, Alvin and Maisie, and three extended groups who'd already joined together over the last few days: this included the bead-maker, Dove, Ravi the henna guy, the acid kid and his carer.  The community was completed by the older couple, who were in their forties or fifties and who wore undyed cloth and straw hats, and looked like the kind of people who shopped for lentils and still said 'groovy' way into the eighties.  (Except, of course, it was the sixties.  Were you allowed to have aging hippies when the hippy movement was so new?  It seemed, apparently, that you were.)  Their names were Henry and Maggie Walters.

Two small tents had been pitched behind the groundsheets to accommodate stores of food, water, blankets, and to provide space for anyone who wanted to sleep in a more sheltered place.  It was obvious that these guys were festival veterans, and that they had been here long enough to sort out the practicalities.  They'd even dug a small latrine within the tree cover behind them.

The bloke who'd been helping the acid-kid come down got up to dance when another of those semi-familiar songs was played by the band.  Ace took his hands and they danced together.  She asked his name.  It was Joseph.  Joe.  He wore jeans that were unimaginably close-fitting at the waist and thigh, and voluminous below the knee.  He had no shoes on.  His stomach was flat and his chest, partly visible through the half-buttoned shirt he wore, was pale and smooth.  He had wavy hair that didn't quite reach his shoulders, three days worth of stubble, and eyebrows that made him look permanently serious.  He might have been in his mid-to-late twenties.

"Why did you take the kid's pulse?" Ace asked over the music.  "Are you a doctor?"

Joe shrugged.  "Not really.  I was almost one.  Once."

"How d'you mean?"

"Dropped out of med school."

"Oh.  Why?"

"It didn't feel like the place I should be."

Ace had spent most of her life in places she didn't feel she should be.  It had taken the intervention of an ancient and evil god to change all that.  She rather envied Joe his ability to make his own decision.  "So where did you go instead?" she asked.

"Commune.  Up near Nashua.  New Hampshire."

Ace nodded.  All she knew about communes was that sometimes they involved people swapping partners for the night.  She was pretty sure there was more to it than that, but didn't want to show her ignorance by asking.

"So is the kid okay?" she asked.

"He's good.  Hard to say for sure without a cuff, but his blood pressure's a bit low.  He'll do fine with some fluids in him."  Joe glanced over at the stage as the band segued into a slower number, and he offered a dancing embrace loose enough that Ace could pull away if she wasn't keen.  "So did you come all the way across the Atlantic just for the music?"

Ace smiled and shook her head.  "There's more happening here than music.  And I came further than over an ocean."

Joe nodded and glanced around at their own temporary commune of people.  "I think we're all still travelling.  We're headed for a good place."

Hippies.  They were all about the abstract.  Ace let Joe hold her closer, and she tried not to step on his bare feet as they danced.

~~~


	2. Chapter 2

_Woodstock Festival, NY_

_Sunday, August 17th 1969_

 

After Canned Heat, Ace gave in to fatigue.  She owned a sleeping bag that rolled up tight, which she carried at the bottom of her rucksack.  She took off her boots, slipped into the warmth of the sleeping bag and curled up.  The Doctor nudged her head, and when she lifted it to see what he wanted he slid his rolled-up jacket underneath.  She smiled at him and closed her eyes.  The music and conversation around her was not so intrusive that she failed to drift quickly into sleep.

If she dreamed, she wasn't aware of it when she stirred awake a few hours later.  She was thirsty.  It was a long time since she'd had the champagne so there was no hangover, but she needed some water.  She sat up in her sleeping bag and looked around.  The night was tinged with light from the distant stage and the various campfires.  Alvin was asleep on his groundsheet not so far away.  Maisie was chatting with Ravi while he drew patterns up her hands and forearms.  A few of the others were standing in front of the tents and groundsheets, looking to the stage expectantly.  Sitting in their deckchairs which had been moved to the side of the picnic blanket, Henry and Maggie were sipping steaming drinks and talking to the Doctor.

The Doctor turned to her and, without a word, handed her a bottle of water.  She took a swig with a nod of thanks.

"Time is it?" she asked.

"Just gone two.  Good timing.  Janis is about to sing."

"Cool," she said, then realised what she'd said and grinned at herself.  Lowering her voice, she murmured, "Doesn't she die?"

"At the age of 27.  Like so many of her peers."

"Right.  Alcohol?  Smack?"

"Both.  She'll be rather the worse for wear when she comes on stage.  But even on an off-day, her voice will insinuate itself into your body and then scramble your insides."

Ace looked at the Doctor, who was gazing with compassion and sadness and a strange kind of love towards the stage.  "Hope you're being metaphorical," she said.

As it turned out, he was.  But the metaphor was pretty much spot on.

~~~

The Who came on at five, just as the Doctor had predicted.  By then most of the people nearby had crashed out.  Ace finally left the snug warmth of her sleeping bag and stood to dance.  Seeing the band play at this particular festival, with this classic line-up: this was not something Ace could sit down for.

Dawn hadn't broken when the band kicked in.  Around her, even this far from the stage, snoozing festival-goers stirred and perked up and paid attention.  She wondered about rushing closer, then decided against it.  For almost twenty-four hours she'd been learning that Woodstock was as much about the people you connected with as the bands you saw play.  She didn't want to forsake the former for the latter: not even for just one band.

Halfway through the set, Ace noticed that she had company.  Joe had woken up and was dancing alongside her.  He mouthed the occasional lyrics along with the songs.  He was a fan.

Around six o'clock, something miraculous happened.  During the melodic build-up to 'See Me, Feel Me' the whole field began to lighten.  As if the sun had been waiting for the most fitting moment, it rose and bathed the whole festival in gold.  This happened just as Roger Daltrey played poor deaf, dumb and blind Tommy, reaching out in a desperate attempt to sense the world.  Ace completely lost it as the sun's rays warmed her and the song built to one of the most perfect melodies in rock.  She was able to calm down for a couple of tracks after that, at which point the band kicked in with 'My Generation' and Ace lost it again.

She and Joe collapsed on the picnic blanket after the band had left the stage, breathing hard, aware that something special had happened.

The Doctor said, "Have some water."

Sound advice.  Ace realised her throat was a bit croaky.  She wondered if she'd disturbed anyone who was sleeping, then realised that the thought was a bit redundant in the middle of a festival field with mega-watt speakers pointing their way.  The water was welcome.

Joe said, "Wanna go for a walk?"

Ace looked at him for a few seconds, assessing, then she nodded.  "Okay."

The two of them stood up.  Joe offered a hand.  Before she headed out, Ace hesitated and glanced back at the Doctor.

He was looking at her.  His body was so still, it was like he was refusing to betray anything with the slightest gesture.  Or perhaps he just had nothing to betray.  The moment held, then the Doctor seemed to relax.  He lifted his chin and said, quietly:

"There's a hay meadow over that way."  He pointed to the right.  "Don't fall asleep there.  Not unless you want an argument with a combine harvester."

She breathed.  Then she nodded and gave a small smile, relieved when the Doctor returned it.

She headed off, holding on to Joe's hand.

~~~

"Is there a reason," Joe asked, "why you're here with me and not with him?"

'Here' was a quiet spot, distant from festival crowds and hay meadows, tucked within some trees.  They were protected from the accidental intrusion of all the other walkers and privacy-seekers thanks to the way Joe had hung his shirt on a nearby branch.  Sort of like the festival-equivalent of a sock-on-a-doorknob, Ace supposed.  She was naked, weirdly unconcerned by this, and she'd been enjoying the way Joe was drawing invisible patterns over her skin with his fingertips.

Joe's question made her tense.  Instinct told her to change the subject, fast, but then she realised something: this was the second time in recent months that someone had made a new kind of assumption about her and the Doctor.  In the past, most people had guessed they were uncle and niece.  What had changed?  Had she reached an age where the assumptions had naturally shifted?  Perhaps at twenty it no longer made sense that she was in some way under the Doctor's guardianship.  Or was it something else: something in the way she and the Doctor behaved?

Either way, Ace could have pretended not to understand the question, but she didn't.  "Me and the Professor aren't like that," she said.

Joe nodded.  "Because of you or because of him?"

Maybe it was the Woodstock vibe, or maybe it was the fact that she'd been carrying the burden of two stupid erotic dreams for a long time, or maybe it was just that Joe was the kind of person whose aura of gentle acceptance made you want to confide in him.  Whatever it was, Ace refrained from telling him to mind his own business.

Instead she said, "Don't really know."  But it wasn't an evasion; it was a simple, literal truth.

"Maybe you'll figure it out sometime."

"Maybe."  Ace rolled to her stomach and rested her head on her arms.  A scattered pile of clothing provided some small protection from the sparse grass on which they lay.  She closed her eyes because these kinds of conversation were easier in darkness.  "We're different, though.  Me and him."

"From each other?  Or from the rest of us?"

"Both," Ace said.

Joe brushed Ace's hair from her neck and back, then he bent his head to press kisses down her spine and across her shoulder blades.  He'd been a good choice for a lover, even if his post-coital conversation was provocative.

Between kisses he said, "Thing about differences?  They're easy."

"How d'you mean?" she asked, though it came out part-sigh because these caresses were ultra-relaxing.

"You know.  You take two people.  From anywhere.  Any age, any gender, any lifestyle.  Put 'em there, side by side, and it's easy to see differences.  Maybe you say - well, this guy's white, but this woman is black.  And she's forty years old, and he's twenty.  And he's forty pounds heavier and has tattoos, and she's got longer hair - you know, you can keep going.  All the differences.  But we never start at the right place.  We never look at those two people, whoever they are, and see two human beings.  So much more alike than they're different."

"A brotherhood and sisterhood of man," Ace said.

"Right on.  That's beautiful."

"So what is it about us?" she asked.  "Why do we find differences easier than similarities?"

"Honestly - I don't know.  I think about it a lot.  It's one of the big questions, for me."  Joe took her shoulder and encouraged her to roll to her side.  "And it isn't just about people.  We share so much with every living thing on this planet.  Biological terms, chimpanzees are our close cousins.  Even if you look at plant life, we share genetic code.  We all need the same basics to survive - oxygen, water, food.  We all reproduce.  There's so much commonality to be found, and it's beautiful.  Elegant.  I love it.  I don't know why more people don't love it too."

Ace opened her eyes.  "Is that why Ravi painted this?" she asked, running a fingertip over Joe's upper arm.

Joe looked down at his own henna artwork, frowning.  "I don't know.  What is it?"

"Um.  I forget what it's called.  It's got a name.  Like 'tricycle', but different."  Ace looked at the three spirals which met in a central point to form a kind of rough triangle.  "My mate Julian - he got a tattoo.  Not like this.  Just a Celtic-knot type thing.  But this one was in the book.  I remember it.  I liked it."

"So what does it mean?"

"Far as I recall, earth, air and sea.  You know.  All joined together, all interdependent.  Well, that's what the book said.  It's just a mythology thing."

"Oh."

"You didn't know?"

"I thought it was just a cool pattern."  He was leaning in, wanting to kiss her again.  She lifted a hand and laid a finger across his lips.

"So what if you take your commonality-theory further?  What about things that aren't even from this planet?"

Joe smiled and kissed her finger before she let it drop.  "Well, that's kind of outside my area.  But speculating?  Here, on this planet, we're all carbon-based life.  Maybe there's other kinds of life out there.  But when it comes down to it, all of us, everything in the universe, is made of matter that formed in the heart of a star.  We've all got that in common.  Maybe if we ever meet the little green men, that's where we should start.  We're all made of star stuff."

"More alike than we're different," Ace mused to herself.  She blinked the thought away, then drew Joe closer with her arms.  "You're quite the boffin, for a college drop-out," she said with a grin.  "Now - enough of the written.  Let's get you started on your practical..."

~~~

"I had some dreams," Ace told Joe later on.  "I don't know what to do about them.  Whether they're even important."

"About your friend the Professor?"

"Yeah."

"Far as I know, dreams happen when our brains try to make sense of things we're worried or confused about.  Are you worried or confused about him?"

"Didn't think so."  She snorted to herself.  "Not till I started having dreams."

Joe nodded.  They were slowly walking back towards their group, taking in various bits of the festival site on the way.  It was almost midday.  They'd made love twice, and talked, and dozed.  It was a lovely, intimate, transient kind of connection they'd forged.

"Did you tell him about your dreams?" Joe asked.

"No.  I can't do that."

"Why?"

"Um - mainly because we were getting naked and sexy together in them."

"Oh.  So you can't say anything in case he doesn't feel the same?"

"I don't even know how _I_ feel!"

Joe paused beside a large play area that had been erected for children.  Parents stood around, keeping a careful eye on their kids.  The air was filled with exuberant shouts.  His hand squeezed hers and he said, "That'd probably be a good place to start, then.  Figure it out."

"How do I do that?" Ace asked.

"Feelings can be hard to pin down," Joe acknowledged.  "Especially love.  It comes in so many flavours."

"Yeah."

"Would you say you love your Professor?"

"Course I do."

"Even though he's different?"

"Maybe a bit _because_ he's different."

"But you and he, you never had any, you know, moments?  When just for a second your eyes meet, and you're both thinking about what it might be like?"

"Don't think so.  Can't really speak for him, though."

"Okay.  So - just in your dreams, then."

"Yeah."

"And what was the context?  Of the dream-sex, I mean."

"Is it important?"

He flashed her a grin.  "You seem to have a mystery to solve.  This is the only evidence you have to go on, so far.  You should analyse it for clues."

Ace huffed a laugh, but conceded that he probably had a point.  "Okay.  We were in danger.  Hiding together.  Then it got all sexy.  That was the first one.  Then the next one, we were arguing.  I was threatening to leave - to stop travelling with him.  He was all 'I don't care' and then when it looked like I was really going he got angry.  Told me I couldn't.  Then he grabbed me and kissed me and, you know.  More sexy stuff."

"Was the context familiar?  The danger, the hiding?"  She glanced his way and he arched an eyebrow at her.  "Gotta tell you, Ace, I haven't undressed too many women who wear knives strapped to their ankles."  He said this with a tolerant grin, which was probably just as well.

"Me and the Professor get in some scrapes, I suppose," Ace said neutrally, because _'We face down monsters and save the galaxy from evil on a semi-regular basis'_ was an answer that didn't tend to be taken at face value.

"What about the arguing and the threats?  Familiar?"

"We bicker.  But I'd say we don't argue as much as we used to.  And I've never threatened to leave.  I wouldn't do that."  She breathed deep, exhaled, shook her head.  "I couldn't," she added in barely a whisper.

They moved away from the playground and walked past a few people who were waiting to use a standpipe supplying drinking water.  "Maybe it's about romantic tension," Joe suggested.  "If there's no other way to relieve the tension, people can get angry.  Snap at each other.  That can cause bickering.  You know?"

"That's not really happened for me and the Professor.  So maybe there's no tension after all."

Joe let go of her hand and pulled her closer with an arm around her shoulders.  "Seems to me like there's tension.  This preoccupies you, even if it doesn't preoccupy him."

"I can't do anything that will spoil what we have," she said.

"That's fine, to an extent.  But you can't let fear dictate how your friendship goes."

"I can be afraid of destroying it, though."

"I guess.  But I never understood that.  You know - the idea that you can be friends with someone or you can be lovers, but you can't ever be both.  Why is that?"

Ace thought about this.  "I don't know.  I suppose it's tricky if one person views things different to the other person."

"Maybe.  But you shouldn't ever forget - your feelings matter too."

Ace nodded.  "You're making sense.  But I still don't know what to do about it.  I still don't even know if there's something I need to do something about."

"Maybe you'll have another dream that could tell you."

"Maybe," she agreed.

Or maybe she could do something more practical.  Maybe she could work out where the hell she stood with the Doctor.  Joe had asked sensible questions: what prompted what; where was this coming from.  These were tangible answers she could figure out.  It only needed her to keep an eye on things.  It'd be a bit like keeping a diary.  Just more specific.

She almost wanted to dash back to the TARDIS and grab her notebook.  The idea of being able to do something proactive about her dreams was a compelling one.

"I really enjoyed this morning," Ace told Joe.  "I won't forget meeting you."

"Me too.  It's been special."  He leaned in kissed her cheek.  "I hope you work it all out.  The things you're not sure of."

They went back to the group.  Ace ate, and relaxed, and when the music started again around two o'clock she danced.  Then the heavens opened and the music stopped, and she returned to the blanket and sheltered under the Doctor's umbrella.

Ace wondered if he'd missed her that morning.  It made no sense, but she knew she'd kind of missed him.

~~~

After the rain had been coming down hard for twenty minutes, and most of the group had decided to head off to their vehicles for a wash and a change of clothes, or a sleep, or to restock the supplies, Ace decided that sitting under an umbrella in a soggy field was a silly way of using her time.

"I think I might nip back and grab a shower," Ace said.  "When's the next band on?"

"They'll start up again around six thirty," the Doctor replied.  "Though unless you want to see Neil Young with Crosby, Stills and Nash, I suspect there's less to interest you on today's bill than yesterday's."

"When's Jimi playing?"

"Not until nine o'clock tomorrow morning.  Over half the crowd will have left by then."

Ace considered.  "Seems daft to miss stuff, now we're here.  I'll be back later on."

"I'll come with you," the Doctor decided.  "I can get more provisions."

Ace arched an eyebrow.  "You mean the picnic basket isn't dimensionally transcendental?"

"No.  Well."  The Doctor's eyes glinted with mischief.  "Not everything in it, anyway."

They headed off under the Doctor's umbrella.

~~~

She showered.  She changed into a clean set of late-sixties-appropriate clothes.

She grabbed her notebook.  In the time since she'd left Joe's company she'd come up with a set of criteria to measure.  Four columns.  In each column she would make a number of marks, all written in neat groups of five.

Column one: times she and the Doctor were forced into close proximity.  
Column two: times she and the Doctor argued (beyond bickering).

And because the notions of inequality had been troubling her:

Column three: times she got herself into trouble and relied on the Doctor to extract her.  
Column four: times the Doctor got himself into trouble and relied on her to extract him.

She spent ten minutes or so going over recent memories: as far back as she could manage before the memories blurred.  When she was done, the marks in columns one and two were fewer than she'd anticipated.  It appeared that her subconscious had overestimated their frequency.  More to the point, the number of marks in column four exceeded those in column three.  It was nice to have some evidence that her contribution to their partnership was not a classic damsel-in-distress.

Once that was finished, she turned to the back page in her notebook and carefully copied down the characters Ravi had painted on her shoulder.  The script was small, and she'd struggled with French O level, let alone languages that didn't use normal letters, so she could only give it her best-guess.  Once she had her copy, she hesitated and then drew Joe's triangular spiral alongside it.  Perhaps some time in years to come she'd catch a glimpse of these scribbles and remember a really lovely, intimate morning.

When she returned to the console room, the Doctor was sitting in one of the two wicker chairs: the kind of thing that posh people might put in their conservatory, but he had decided were perfect for the heart of his time-and-space craft.  A roundel was open behind him, and he held a data-screen in his hands, researching something.  Probably the next move he was going to make in the chess game that was his life.

He noted her arrival after a moment, smiled congenially and stood up.  He put the data-screen away and went to grab his brolly.

"More music?" he asked.

"More music."

They left the ship together.

~~~

The worst of the rain had passed.  The skies were clearing over to the west.  The chill in the air was lifting, and Ace had the impression that it was going to be a beautiful evening.

People returned to the settlement in ones and twos.  Dove crawled out of one of the tents looking dishevelled and sleepy.  The kid who'd been on acid was now quite functional and animated; he and three others were jamming together with two acoustic guitars, a penny whistle and a rather battered-looking squeezebox.  They were actually in tune, though goodness only knew how they were managing it.

The Doctor produced, from his restocked picnic basket, foil-wrapped baked potatoes.  Ace didn't even ask; she just accepted a piping-hot potato, unwrapped it, and hollowed it sufficiently to fill it with butter, black pepper, cheese and coleslaw.  She wasn't the only member of the local group to benefit from the Doctor's culinary foresight.

The Doctor found a pair of spoons in his picnic basket.  He began to play along with the jam.  The musicians, for some ungodly reason, seemed to welcome his participation.  Must have been the Woodstock thing, but even Ace didn't find the clatter as annoying as usual.

When the jam petered out, the Doctor moved over to Ravi's groundsheet.  Ace narrowed her eyes, watching with an odd sense of suspicion as words were exchanged, then the Doctor surprised the hell out of her by shrugging off his jacket, pulling that hideous tanktop over his head, and taking off his shirt.  He sat there on the groundsheet, cross-legged, naked to the waist, and he nodded his head in time to the one acoustic guitar still being played.  Ravi got busy with his henna pots.

Ace tried not to dwell on the fact that this was the first time she had ever seen the Doctor in such a state of undress, even after four years of living and travelling together.  She also tried not to draw any conclusions from this new and irrefutable evidence that the male Time Lords of Gallifrey were anatomically indistinguishable from human males, at least from the waist up.

The music on stage started again.  Joe came over and offered Ace a hand.  She got up and danced, as much because it distracted her from the Doctor as anything else.

An hour later, between sets, the Doctor returned to their picnic blanket with his shirt on but unbuttoned.  He tucked his other garments to one side and drew a deep breath.

Ace said, "Can I see?"

He looked her way, then took his left arm out of his shirt and held it out for her inspection.

Ace pinched her lips together as she dipped her head and moved his arm to see the pathway that Ravi's pattern had made from the palm of the Doctor's hand, all the way up to his shoulder.

"That looks like the constellation of Kasterborous," she said.

"Yes."  The Doctor didn't sound surprised by the comment.

She bent his elbow and lifted the arm.  There were three circles, all containing circles and lines of their own.  "That's Gallifreyan script," she said.

"Is it?"  The Doctor twisted his head to try to look, then he shrugged.  "Quite, quite possibly."

"Quite possibly?" she threw back at him.  "A hippy in a field in the nineteen-sixties is drawing graffiti on your arm in a language known only to an advanced race of beings whose home planet is half a galaxy away."

"Yes," the Doctor acknowledged, drawing out the word thoughtfully.

She lowered the arm and scrutinised the patch below his shoulder.  There was a swirl of dots that might have been a vortex of some kind, and a rectangular shape on an angle within.  "And that's-"

"Yes."

The TARDIS.  Or at least, a stylised representation thereof.

Ace lowered her voice and leaned in close.  "Professor?  What the hell's going on?"

He shrugged his shirt back into place, then he matched Ace's conspiratorial manner.  "It would appear," he murmured, "that our friend Ravi is a touch-telepath."

Ace's eyes widened.  "He could read my mind when he painted my arm?"

"Nothing so specific.  I think he gets a glimmer of those things that define us."  The Doctor took Ace's arm and turned her wrist upwards.  "That's the chemical structure of nitro-glycerine.  It seems that even at twenty years of age there's a part of you that likes blowing things up."

"Yeah?  Seems like even at nine-hundred and fifty there's a part of the renegade that still thinks about home."

He held her gaze for a moment, then said, " _Touché_."

"So why these Chinese characters?" Ace demanded.  "I don't think in bloody Chinese."

The Doctor glanced at the characters in question, then glanced away.  "Ah.  Yes.  That's a good point," he said.

"How do you mean?"

He sighed.  "Oh, it doesn't matter.  I don't think we're in any trouble here.  I'm not even sure Ravi knows what he's doing."

"So find out for sure.  You're a touch-telepath.  Go and give him a mind-probe or something."

"I tried.  Just to make contact, nothing intrusive or unpleasant.  I, er, failed."

Ace arched a brow at how very miffed the Doctor appeared to be as he made this admission.  "So he's got mental defences."

"Very sturdy ones.  Natural ones.  If he's human, then he's the first I've come across with this combination of skills."  The Doctor tilted his head in consideration.  "Well, the first this side of the twenty-third century."

"What happens in the twenty-third century?"

"The Dalek Wars.  And some rather nasty military experimentation on soldiers."

"Oh.  Okay, so what if Ravi's not human?"

"What indeed?"

"I _mean_ \- a genuine telepath could do some serious damage in this era.  Vietnam, Cold War, lots of fidgety world powers with arsenals of nuclear weapons?  A telepath could light the blue touch paper."

The Doctor nodded.  "True enough."

"But he doesn't seem to be hostile, does he?  The guy's sitting in a field listening to music and painting patterns on our arms."  Ace wrinkled her nose.  "Maybe we should just live and let live."

"Maybe."  There was a pause, then the Doctor shifted where he sat and grew more animated.  "It's a puzzle, though."

"So?"

"I like to solve puzzles."

Ace tut-tutted.  "Curiosity and cats, Professor-"

"And if he _is_ alien, trying to get by on this planet because he's found himself alone, trapped here..."

She sighed.  "Fair point.  He might want a lift home."

"He might, indeed."  The Doctor paused, then nodded as if the whole matter had been sorted out.  "Right then.  I'll find a good moment to make him that offer."

"No."  Ace glanced at Joe, who was trying to discreetly watch the two of them as they shared this rather intense and secretive discussion, and then she looked at Ravi and Dove.  The fact that Ravi had rigidly turned his back on the two of them told Ace all she needed to know.  "No, I'll do it."  When the Doctor's eyebrows raised in mild surprise, she said, "Look at him.  You've already freaked him out.  If he's here all alone, trying to fit in, what do you think the threat of exposure might do?  'Cause I think it might take a perfectly nice alien hippy and turn him hostile."

The Doctor considered her for a long moment before he said, "Are you now claiming to be the member of this partnership with the diplomatic skills?"

Ace grinned.  "No.  Just the member with long hair and breasts."

He looked at her as if she spoke in tongues.

"Trust me," she said.  "If he thinks he's been rumbled, hearing it from a twenty year old woman will be the better option."  She leaned past the Doctor and called, "Hey, Ravi?"

Ravi turned towards her.  There was guarded wariness in his expression.  In a place like this one, the discomfort might as well have been a beacon.  "Yes?" he asked.

Ace smiled with all the warmth she could muster.  "The round things you did on the Professor's arm?  So cool.  I've got a whole other arm - will you do some on mine later?"

He slowly nodded and ventured a smile.  "Of course."

"Just let me know when's good."  She waved a hand and then flopped back down next to the Doctor.  Deliberately, she didn't look at Ravi again.  The Doctor followed her lead.

"So," he said after a few moments.

"So?"

"You've demonstrated a knowledge of history, a strategic mindset, and an ability to diffuse tension."

"Did I?  Must be getting old."

"You do still like blowing things up, don't you?"

Ace grinned.  "Don't worry, Professor.  Some things will never change."

Their shoulders bumped together.  On the distant stage, someone announced a bloke called Country Joe.  Ace settled in to enjoy more music.

~~~


	3. Chapter 3

_Woodstock Festival, NY_

_Monday, August 18th 1969_

 

On the stage, a blues guitarist called Johnny Winter was playing.  It was almost one o'clock in the morning.  Some people were starting to talk about the need to head out and hit the road: the ones that were due at work later that day.

Ace sat beside Ravi and let him paint henna patterns up her arm.  She pretended not to be aware of the way the Doctor scrutinised the event from the safe distance of the picnic blanket.

"Are you happy here, Ravi?" she asked, after doing her best to establish a companionable silence.  She pitched her voice low, so only the two of them were involved in the conversation.

"Here at this festival?  Sure."

"Here on this planet, I mean."

He hesitated only briefly, then he said, "Actually yes.  I'm happy with my life."

Ace nodded.  It wasn't exactly an admission, but it was close.

"The Professor," she said, "would not be happy to find himself restricted to one world."

Another hesitation, then Ravi said, "Yes.  I understood that."

Which was much more of an admission, since the reply had not consisted of, _'What the hell are you talking about, you mad woman?'_

She took it as progress, and added, "Don't think I would be any more, either.  Satisfied with the one world, I mean.  Only I don't have an excuse.  I was actually born here.  I'm one hundred per cent boring old human."

"No you're not," Ravi replied.  "Your travels have changed you."

She met his dark, studious eyes and arched a brow.  "How d'you mean?"

"Your body is different.  There's an energy.  A...glow.  It's hard to describe."

"Oh.  I didn't know that."

"It isn't obvious.  And I don't mean to pry-"

"I know.  You just understand people."

Ravi gently moved her arm to a new position and altered his angle as he continued to paint.  "The other people here can't see your glow.  But they realise you're different, if they spend time with you."

"Me personally, or me and the Professor together?"

"Both.  It's okay, though.  It's a good thing.  It suits you."

Ace nodded, and craned her neck to see what Ravi was painting on the sensitive underside of her upper arm.  "What are you drawing?"

"The round symbols you asked for."

"I don't read Gallifreyan."

"I don't know what that is."

"So how are you picking out the symbols to use?"

He gave a small, dismissive shrug.  "I just know."

"But they can't be coming from me."  Ace frowned.  "The Chinese characters can't have come from me, either.  And they didn't come from the Doctor - he didn't know what they meant."  She glanced around at the nearby festival crowd, suddenly wary that some unknown element was projecting thoughts Ravi's way.

Ravi stopped painting, and his eyes caught the flickering flames of a nearby campfire when he looked at her.  "Is that what he said?  That he didn't know them?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

He went back to work.  Ace swallowed.  She wasn't sure what was being suggested.  Actually, no, that wasn't true; she knew perfectly well what Ravi had insinuated.  She just really hated it when the Doctor indulged in purposeful, premeditated deceit with her.  She'd thought they were past that.

After a few more minutes she sighed.  "Okay, so I'm just going to say it rather than hope you can mind-meld it out of me.  If you need a lift anywhere, just ask.  We can take you.  If you're ready to move on."

Ravi smiled at her.  "You're very kind.  But I meant what I said.  This life makes me happy.  I haven't always been happy.  I think I should stay here."

Ace nodded.  "There's an address I can give you.  In England.  If you ever need help, need to move on, anything at all, you can send a note there.  Just put the date and your current location on it.  We'll come and find you."

"All right."

Eventually Ravi eased Ace's arm down and finished the _mehndi_ just below her shoulder with a picture similar to the one on the Doctor: the swirling vortex wrapped around the rectangular box that was home.

"I s'pose the thing with understanding people," she said to him quietly, as he put the finishing touches to his art, "is that you work out pretty fast who's a threat and who's a friend.  Right?"

"This is true."

"So you want to trust me with where you're from?"

Ravi blinked, then looked intently at the artwork as if searching for errors or gaps.

"No?"  Ace shrugged.  "That's okay.  Your call."

Ravi sighed, and he began to put his conical pots away.  "I was born on a refugee ship which was fleeing the wars of the Coroval Cluster."  He looked at her.  For just an instant his expression held an echo of remembered pain and suffering.  Then he shook his head and looked away.  "If I told you how I got from there to here, you wouldn't believe me."

"Reckon?  I met the Professor after an ancient being with god-like powers whipped up a Time Storm that threw me across time and space.  Believe that?"

Ravi gave a small smile.  "Yes."

"Course you do.  You're a walking lie-detector."  She grinned at him  "Whatever happened to you, I'm glad it seems to have worked out."  She scribbled down the address of the house on Allen Road, handed this to Ravi, then she returned to the Doctor's side.

She didn't say anything.  She kind of wanted to make him ask.  When he did, he sounded irritated.  Of course, they'd long-established that he didn't like not knowing things.

"Ace?"

She smirked and looked across at where Alvin was snoozing with his head in Maisie's lap, and Maisie was humming along with the music from the stage.  No one was paying them any attention.  "He doesn't need a lift," she said.

"And?"

She glanced at the Doctor.  "Coroval Cluster refugee."

A pause.  Then the Doctor exhaled hard.  "Of course.  He's a Lintar."

"He's happy.  He's no threat.  He's got a way to contact us if he needs help."

"Very well."  The Doctor nodded.  "So how did he end up here?"

"Shit happens."

"Ace-"

"Come on, Professor, not everything needs solving."  People were entitled to their privacy, surely.  Especially telepathic people who were sitting only twelve feet distant, and whose most personal memories were steeped in torment.

But the Doctor had adopted his distant expression: the one that told her those ancient alien cogs were a-turning.  "One of the refugee ships went missing _en route_ to Presko," he said thoughtfully.  "There were tales that Fulnian pirate slavers had-"

"Doctor."  He stopped.  Looked at her.  It was their shorthand.  If she called him 'Doctor' then it was a bit more serious than banter.  Ace shook her head slowly.  "Ravi's fine.  He's found his place.  He's put his past behind him.  Leave it."

Those storm-grey Time Lord eyes glittered with impatience for a moment, then softened.  "As you say."

On stage, Johnny Winter wound up his set.  The thinning crowd cheered their appreciation.

"Apparently," Ace said, "I glow."

"Do you now?"

"Yeah.  I'm a special glowing thing of otherness."

The Doctor smiled and looked up at the sky.  "Artron energy.  It's a side-effect of regular time travel."

"Oh.  Not special, then."

"Well, I wouldn't say that."

She rolled her eyes.  On stage the musicians departed.  Ace clapped briefly with the rest of the Woodstock crowd.

As casually as she could, Ace asked, "So why did you lie to me?"

Silence.  She turned to look at the Doctor.  He met her gaze briefly, then he looked away.

"Not just a touch-telepath," he deduced with a sigh.

"Yeah, worked that out."  She tut-tutted.  "Those Chinese characters came from you.  So - you going to tell me what they mean, or you going to make me look them up?"

The Doctor hesitated, then he said, "It's Japanese.  It reads - _wabi-sabi_."

"What?!  That stuff you put on _sushi_?"

"No, that's _wasabi_.  I said _wabi-sabi_."

"Okay.  And that means...?"

"It's a philosophy.  A cultural aesthetic.  It embraces transience.  It sees beauty in that which is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete."  He shook his head and waved a dismissive hand.  "It was obviously in my mind because of the TARDIS.  We talked about _kintsugi_ when we first arrived."

"So we did."  Ace frowned at the swirl of memories that the last two days had offered, trying to pinpoint the relevant details.  "And, er, what's _kintsugi_ again?"

"The act of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer.  But it's more than that.  It's an idea.  That if an object is broken and then repaired, then its beauty, its worth increases, because it has experience.  History."

Ace's head was threatening to spin.  "Right then.  So here's the million dollar question.  Why is all this Japanese philosophy written on my sodding arm?"

"I suppose Ravi picked up on me thinking about it.  I wouldn't read into it."

"Oh, come on!  He draws symbols that are defining for the person he's painting.  Dove's peace symbol.  Joe's worldly togetherness.  My love of blowing things up.  Ravi wasn't painting symbols on the TARDIS.  He was painting _me_.  So try again, Professor - why does _wabi-sabi_ define me, and why are you still trying to lie to me about it?"

"Because I saw a parallel!"  The Doctor stood up, fractious, annoyed.  He took his hat off and scrubbed at his hair.  "You've been broken and repaired.  Do you deny it?"

Ace bit her lip before she said, "No."

"And it's a good thing.  Experience gives you value, just as it does the TARDIS."  He looked down at her.  Their eyes held for several seconds.

Ace didn't know what to say.

Holding his hat in his hands, the Doctor said, "I lied because you might have taken it the wrong way."  He looked away from her, frowning.  "I thought perhaps you might have been offended.  You were raised in a culture that views imperfection as a flaw."

"Oh," she said.

It seemed that the whole weird discussion could basically be put down to a mix-up of ideas.  Things that weren't even all that important, in and of themselves: not if you weren't Japanese, anyway.

But then the Doctor put his hat back on and tapped it into place.  "I'll be back before dawn," he said, and he spun on his heels and walked away.  Rather briskly.  His hat quickly became lost in the nearby crowds.

At that point Ace had to acknowledge that the discussion had been in some way meaningful.  People didn't run away from inconsequential conversations, now did they?  But she couldn't work out why it had been important, or how.  It was like that weird exchange she'd had with the Doctor in a Mexican restaurant in London a few months ago.  That was another talk that had left Ace more bewildered after it had taken place than she'd been beforehand.

He thought she'd been broken: she could hardly argue with that.  He thought the broken parts of herself had been fixed: again, this was simply the truth.  She was a different woman now compared to the crazy, mixed-up kid that she'd been when first he'd met her.

He thought that experience added value to people.  Again, this was scarcely an earth-shattering idea.  Experience made people interesting.  The Doctor liked 'interesting'.

So what was she missing?  Was she missing anything at all?  Maybe the Doctor had gone marching off because he was bored with the tedious amount of attention Ace was giving to a Japanese word that had somehow ended up painted on her arm.  Or maybe he'd simply remembered an errand he needed to run.

With any luck he might be nipping backstage to have a word with Jimi and advise him never to go to bed drunk...

God, this was annoying.  Even if Joe was right, even if she and the Doctor were more alike than they were different, it was still impossible to know what was going on in that alien brain of his.

" _Wabi-sabi_ ," she murmured, tasting the foreign word in her mouth.

The beauty in something which is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.

Ace frowned as a fleeting memory of a picnic on Keverne flickered through her thoughts.  Because - now she thought about it - this was the _second_ time that the Doctor had managed to call her beautiful by stealth.

~~~

The field no longer contained a sea of people as far as the eye could see.  More like a few very large puddles of them.

Ace had enjoyed Crosby, Stills and Nash.  Their acoustic set had been a bit meandery after a while, but with Neil Young they'd managed to get some good riffs going.  Joe liked Neil Young.  He sat with her and sang some songs along with the band.  He had quite a good voice.

He didn't ask her what had happened to the Doctor.  Maybe he was being sensitive; maybe he wasn't that interested.  They'd be parting forever within another six hours or so, of course.

The latest band had opened with a blues classic: 'Born Under a Bad Sign.'  Ace found a bottle of inexplicably chilled cider in the picnic basket and shared it with Joe.  The Walters packed up and said their goodbyes, and not long afterwards so did Maisie and Alvin.

The band on stage slowed things down, and the frontman started playing some really excellent blues harmonica that made Ace think of Earl Sigma.

The Doctor came back as the sun was brightening the field.  He sat down next to her on the picnic blanket and didn't say anything.  Joe got up and wandered off.  Like three was a crowd.

The audience continued to diminish.  Ravi's group, including Dove, packed up to head out.  Ace went to say goodbye to everyone.  There was a lot of embracing.  Funny how two days in a field had made these people feel like real friends.

Ace finished the cider and put the bottle away.  In the time since the Doctor had been absent, she'd been thinking: if she'd known all the Japanese stuff before today, it might as easily have been her thoughts projecting those characters on to him, rather than the other way around.  The same ideas applied, after all.  The Doctor's worth was defined by his history.  He'd been broken and repaired many times; his cracks had been lacquered with gold.  Regeneration took this idea to its physical extreme.

She and the Time Lord really were more alike than they were different.

She told herself that it was just the alcohol loosening her tongue when she leaned back against her rucksack and said to the Doctor, "Know what?"

"Hmm?"

"You're beautiful too," she said.  "To me."  She wasn't looking at him.  Deliberately.  So she had no idea whether the comment was met with a frown or a smile or a startled look of bewilderment.  "I can say that," she added, when no reply was forthcoming.  "On account of this is Woodstock."

"Ah."

"It's just hippy-talk, isn't it?"

"I see."

"But right now, right here, it's what I think."

Ace squinted up at the sunshine.  She threw an arm over her face to block the light.

"Who's on next?" she asked, feeling a need to change the subject.

"Sha Na Na."

"Wow.  Seriously?"

"You know them?"

"Never heard of them."

"Old-fashioned Presley-era rock 'n' roll.  With lots of dancers in matching outfits."

Ace shook her head.  "Okey-dokes.  I'm having a pre-Hendrix snooze."

She settled down without bothering with her sleeping bag.  After a moment the brightness that tinted her closed lids with redness faded.  She sensed the Doctor moving things around beside her and suspected that he'd positioned his brolly to use as a sunshade.  He put his jacket over her shoulders and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead.

Before exhaustion saw her doze off, the thought occurred that if she loved him any more than she did already, her heart might just break with it.

It was just as well that the Doctor didn't have Ravi's skills.

~~~

Jimi Hendrix wore his white leather jacket with the ridiculous fronds hanging off the arms.  A red headband was wrapped round his forehead.  He played the guitar like it was an extension of his own body rather than a separate instrument.

He was up there, on stage.  Alive.  Just now, just in this moment, Ace was sharing the planet with the greatest guitarist who had ever jacked into an amp and struck a chord.  They were breathing the same air, Dorothy McShane and Jimi Hendrix.

Funny, how much this fact moved her.  She hadn't found herself thinking this kind of stuff about Keith Moon when she'd watched The Who the previous morning.

The set went too fast.  Obviously it did.  The sound wasn't always balanced.  Some of the songs weren't familiar.  Nothing mattered beyond the fact that she was here, dancing in the sunshine.  Joe danced to her left hand side and the Doctor danced to her right.  The thinned-down crowd were making up for their missing brothers and sisters with their energetic appreciation.

And then came the Star-Spangled Banner.  Not just a recognisably iconic moment, as she'd heard so many times on cassette tape.  She'd never really noticed before that it was a political statement.  Hendrix made his guitar mimic the sounds of guns and bombs as he played that most American of anthems.  Leave it to the drugged-out hippies to point out what should have been blatantly obvious to everyone: the Vietnam war had been a bloody terrible idea.  The emotion of the moment carried Ace as much as the music.  Around her, others heard and understood and connected.  It might have felt like an in-joke, were it not for the fact that it wasn't in the remotest way funny.

Ace threw herself into her dancing when the cacophony of angry guitar morphed into 'Purple Haze'.  It might be the last time she ever heard that song played live by an actual musical genius.  She lived every line, every wail, every beat; she spun and twisted and threw shapes with her arms; her hair streamed out like a contrail as her head moved.  She had gone so far beyond inhibition and self-consciousness that she'd have had trouble defining the concepts.

Then came some more classic Hendrix improv.  Not many musicians could hold a festival audience spellbound with some random riffing.  Then another song that she didn't know well, and the band left the stage.

The crowd cheered and begged for more.  Hendrix obliged.

'Hey Joe.'

Ace realised, with a start, that she had a choice to make.  She looked at the Doctor, whose eyes were on the stage.  She looked at Joe, whose flushed face was shiny with perspiration and who was gazing back at her with an affectionate smile.  He stepped towards her.  It seemed the choice had been made.  Obvious, really.  The clue was in the name.

Joe took her in his arms and embraced her closely for a few moments, then he pulled back, lifted her chin and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to her mouth.

"Goodbye, Ace," he said.  "I loved meeting you.  Be happy."

Hendrix hadn't reached the end of the first verse when Joe stepped away, turned and walked in the direction of the main roads.  Ace blinked, wondering what _that_ was about.  Joe the ex-med student had picked a seriously weird time to leave Woodstock: right at the start of Hendrix's encore.

There was a touch at her right hand and she looked around.  The Doctor smiled and nudged her nose, then he pulled her into a loose embrace and danced her in time to the music.

"For the record," he said, "I like this song in spite of it being about a rather ugly crime of passion."

Ace nodded.  "Yeah.  Me too."

So alike.  And they were both of them made of star stuff.

They danced.

"Had a good birthday weekend?" he asked.

"Hmm.  Met some nice people.  Saw some good bands.  Got painted on by a telepathic alien.  It's been ace."

On stage, Hendrix asked, "Where you gonna run to now?  Where you gonna go?"

Ace wasn't sure it mattered.  She was pretty sure the point was that they were still travelling, and they were heading for a good place.

~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this story is taken from Joni Mitchell's song 'Woodstock'.
> 
> Joe's henna artwork is a triple spiral, or triskele, with its meaning derived from its importance to Celtic paganism.
> 
> You can google kintsugi and wabi-sabi if you're interested in Japanese aesthetics. Seems to me they have a much wiser and more sophisticated understanding of beauty than that which has been defined by western standards. As the divine Mrs. Bradley once said, "Sensible people, the Japanese."


End file.
